Pigboats

by Ellsberg, Edward

  But now on top of all, a nameless fear gripped the U-boat flotilla. Their friends, their shipmates, safely through the mine fields, well out on the hunting grounds west and south of Ireland, were beginning silently to vanish. Seven boats, one after another, had disappeared. Here and there on the wide seas, as night broke, and tired U-boat crews came to the surface to lie awash and charge batteries, to smoke, to breathe again the pure air of heaven, to chatter in the darkness with the nearest sister, perhaps fifty miles away across a tumbling waste of water, it had happened seven times now in a few brief weeks, that from a sister U-boat which only the night before had rattled out cheerfully in dots and dashes its adventures, its successes of the day — from that boat, nothing came now in answer to its constantly repeated call, nothing — but ominous silence.

  When the U-19 disappeared, the first to be lost without trace for over four months, the instructions regarding the dangers from mystery ships had been carefully explained again to all U-boat captains. They had been absolutely forbidden to expose their boats to fire from the ship attacked, no matter how helpless she seemed, how abandoned and waterlogged she might be; attacks by gunfire must be carried out from a prudent distance and on a sheltered bearing; only when properly submerged to periscope depth might a U-boat approach for a torpedo attack or for examination after bringing a ship to with gunfire.

  But in spite of warnings, of rigid German obedience to orders, the losses went on; more U-boats vanished without trace; panic started to grip the remainder. Attacks with the gun were not being pressed home; torpedoes were fired at such long ranges that hits were hopeless to expect; it was even suspected in Berlin that several boats fired away their precious torpedoes at nothing at all and started home without ever having seen a ship. U-boat morale started to crack; tonnage losses in the Allied fleets commenced to decrease; to the worried strategists in the Wilhelmstrasse, it began to look as if, at the very moment when their armies seemed most likely to crash through to Paris, they were about to lose the war on the sea.

  Bespectacled Herr Doktors and bearded Grand Admirals conferred endlessly, scratched bewildered heads, asked for the hundredth time:

  “What mysterious weapon against U-boats have the Allies at last developed?”

  But ponderous discussions, elaborate scientific deductions, furnished no answer.

  CHAPTER XV

  In the early May evening, Tom Knowles climbed the steep hill back of Queenstown to Admiralty House. He puffed a little as he toiled up the sharp ascent, pausing occasionally to catch his breath and look back on the harbour, where Haulbowline Island gleamed against the dark water, ships dotted the surface here and there, and the emerald hills, rising green on all sides, ringed in the landlocked bay.

  A little out from the island swung the Melville; he could almost look down her stack. And alongside her, port and starboard, lay her litter of pigs, seven all told of the L boats, sucking air, sucking water, sucking electricity, through the lines running from them to their mother ship.

  In the drydock at Haulbowline lay the Galway, while a hole, blown in her by a torpedo on her second U-boat encounter, was being patched up. Till that was repaired, at least two weeks hence, Tom could not go to sea again.

  Still things were moving. In the outer harbour lay two tramps, decoys which on the morrow would sail and meet at sea two of the pigboats now suckling from the Melville. A third decoy was already out on patrol, and the British had several working out of Plymouth and more fitting up.

  With his wind restored, Tom resumed the climb. He had become a frequent visitor to Admiralty House since his first trip out; Uncle Lewis had insisted that he make it his headquarters when the L-20 was in port. And Miss Voysey, his niece and hostess, had made things so pleasant for him there, that for once, at least, obeying the orders of the C. in C. at Queenstown became a joy rather than a duty. More particularly since Mary Martin could always be counted on to be present after the canteen closed, and sometimes (when the L-20 was in) considerably before.

  He reached the top of the hill at last, trudged up the steps. The orderly saluted very respectfully, and hastily threw the door back for one of Admiral Bayly’s favourite guests.

  “H’im h’afraid the h’admiral’s still below, workin’ on ’is charts in the old billiard room, leftenant. But Miss Voysey’s h’in the dinin’ room an’ Miss Martin’s ’elpin’ ’er. Shall h’I tell the lydies yere’ere, sir?”

  “No, thanks, Tompkins, they’ll find it out soon enough. I’ll just lay below and find the admiral.”

  He strolled through the parlour, which was abruptly chopped in two by a flimsy partition covered with maps, that the admiral had erected to make part of the room into an additional office.

  “Comfort last with Uncle Lewis,” mused Tom. “Drawing boards in the billiard room, war maps in the parlour. Lucky he hasn’t thought yet of how to win the war with the dining room.”

  He peered through. Miss Voysey was setting the table, there was Mary shaking her curly head over the sideboard, searching for spoons. Tom hastily disappeared down the stairs to the ex-billiard room.

  “I wish Uncle Lewis would requisition a decent outfit of silver for this house!” exclaimed Mary. “Here he represents the dignity of Britain, and there aren’t two spoons in the house alike, and not one that isn’t ready to be melted up for old silver,” she looked at them more closely, “or junk, more likely. Where did he get them, dear?”

  “Off some decommissioned cruiser, I suppose, Mary. But don’t bother; Uncle Lewis says he won’t sign a requisition for anything for Queenstown that costs the Admiralty money, except depth bombs and torpedoes, till the U-boats are whipped.” She straightened out the worn cloth. “However, if I were you, I shouldn’t worry, my dear. I’m sure from the way Leftenant Knowles kept his eyes on you, the last time he was here, he’ll never notice the spoons. Mentioned him yet to your father, old thing?”

  Mary blushed.

  “Rather. But only casually. Just a young American whom Uncle Lewis has taken quite a fancy to, and whom the charming Miss Voysey’s had up to Admiralty House a few times. I don’t dare suggest more than that. Father has a whole squadron of battleships at Scapa Flow on his mind. You wouldn’t want him to start worrying about his only daughter and have him lose the war this late in the game, would you, dear?”

  “No, sweetheart, but do be careful. About Americans, I mean.”

  “Thanks, but really, there’s no danger. Out of a hundred officers I’ve seen off the American flotillas, he’s about the only one I’ve met over three times who hasn’t proposed.”

  Miss Voysey dropped the napkins, looked at her amused.

  “Well, you are good-looking, darling.”

  “Oh, no compliment to me, my dear,” hastily added Mary. “I don’t mean that; the poor things are just lonely, that’s all. Why, Jane Howard, who’s been helping me in the canteen — you know Jane, don’t you, dear?” Miss Voysey nodded. “Well, Jane brags that nearly all of them have proposed to her the first time they’ve met, and that not one waited longer than the second time. I think myself she’s been leading them on, don’t you?”

  “Oh, quite. I think waiting till the third time is so much more formal — really conservatively British, in fact.” They both laughed, then hurriedly finished arranging the table as they caught Admiral Bayly’s brisk tread coming up the stairs.

  The admiral, hands clasped behind his back, stopped in the doorway, his weatherbeaten face examining quizzically the arrangements his nieces had made. Tom Knowles, half a head taller, looked over his shoulder, trying to stay in the background as much as possible.

  “I presume we should wait till dinner’s been announced, but we’ll dispense with that formality. Everything really seems ready.” The admiral drew back Miss Voysey’s chair; Tom hastened to assist Mary Martin.

  Admiral Bayly waited a moment while his guest was seated, then took his own place.

  As the soup was served, the admiral looked around uneasily, first down one side
of the table, then the other, finally looked at Miss Voysey anxiously.

  “Where’s Pat?” he queried. “Certainly we can’t have dinner without Pat here.”

  “I’ve been wondering myself, Uncle Lewis,” answered Miss Voysey. “Perhaps you’d better ask.”

  The admiral leaned back, roared out:

  “Orderly!”

  On the double, the bluejacket at the door entered, stood rigidly at attention. Admiral Bayly looked at him sternly, asked:

  “Where’s Pat?”

  The astonished orderly leaned forward a little as if not sure he had heard correctly, then stiffened again.

  “’E’s gone ashore, sir. H’I saw ’im a-chasin’ another ’ound down the lane ’arf an hour ago an’ ’e ain’t been ’ere since, sir. Shall h’I h’order h’out the guard to bring ’im in, sir?”

  “So Pat’s jumped the ship, eh?” The admiral shook his head, looked at Miss Voysey in mock dismay. “What punishment for that?”

  “Two hours solitary, on dog biscuit and water; nothing less,” she announced gaily.

  Admiral Bayly turned gravely to the orderly.

  “Never mind having the Shore Patrol round him up, but tell the Master at Arms to see he’s properly confined on his return.” The sentry saluted, disappeared. The admiral turned a smiling face to his guest.

  “Keeping track of that hound is about as nerve-racking as hunting U-boats. And I’m afraid Miss Voysey’d not survive if he failed to show up after a liberty. How about that, my dear?”

  Miss Voysey laughed.

  “Pat’s a free and equal member of this family, and he knows it. But I am afraid with all these ships in the harbour that some sailor will annex him for a mascot.”

  “One trip’s all he’d make, Miss Voysey,” responded Tom quickly, “and he’d be back here. There isn’t an officer on any of our ships doesn’t know where he belongs.”

  “Thank you, it’s nice of you to think we’re so well known. But it might be Pat’s luck to choose a boat that never came back again.”

  “Even so, I don’t think you’d lose him, do you, Tom — Ieftenant?” Mary caught herself, blushed a little.

  “No, I think not, Miss Martin,” replied Tom, pretending not to notice. “If anybody at all’s saved, you can be sure they’ll save the mascot. Isn’t that so, admiral?”

  “Right, quite, Mr. Knowles. I don’t know how many times we’ve picked up drifting boats with nobody left alive, crew frozen to death generally, and still there’d be some dog or cat or parrot alive that one of the poor devils risked his life to get into the boat before his ship sank. When there aren’t any women or children, a sailor’ll always look after his mascot first.”

  The next course passed in silence. To everyone there, gruesome memories of drifting lifeboats were too personal to encourage conversation on that topic. It was just off Queenstown that the torpedoed Lusitania had gone down, and it was to Queenstown harbour that her boats had come, bringing the dazed survivors. Since then, how many boats had drifted in, bearing tales of the U-boat war, who knew?

  With the roast, Admiral Bayly broke the silence again.

  “Heard from your father, Mary?”

  “Not for a week. But he says there’s no change. He’s kept very well this spring, in spite of those Orkney fogs and all the night steaming they’ve been doing. Why all that manoeuvring, Uncle Lewis? Do you think they’re expecting the High Seas Fleet out again?”

  “Hardly, but I suppose the Grand Fleet must keep prepared. One never knows, my dear. Let me see, it’ll be two years since Jutland, the end of this month. What a battle!” His grizzled head shook reflectively as he carved. “Where were you when Jutland was fought, leftenant?”

  “Out in China, sir,” replied Tom briefly. He might indeed have added that he remembered well enough the argument he, a common sailor then, had that June day with the squarehead mate as to whether the report could actually be true that the British had had three of their biggest battle cruisers blown up, and had lost nobody knew how many light cruisers and destroyers. Tom had convinced the mate it was all German propaganda, only to find, when they reached Kobe a week later, that it was all so; and he had decided it was preferable to jump the ship rather than face that mate again. But he remained silent about those details.

  “In China, eh? I rather imagine the shock of the Queen Mary blowing up might well have been felt in China. A terrible day!” He nodded sadly. “Well, Miss Mary, I suppose your father feels they’re ready now if von Scheer comes out again. But I rather think he won’t. We’ve learned more about magazine protection since Jutland, and I believe the High Seas Fleet has learned discretion after their escape that day. There’ll be no more fleet actions in this war.”

  “I hope not,” said Mary emphatically. “It’s all very well in the army where the generals sit twenty miles behind the lines and over the telephone have the boys hold the front line trenches at all costs; in the navy, the admiral’s in the same boat with everybody else. While dad’s out on the flagship, I can get along without any more battleship actions at all.”

  “A smashing fleet action would end the war in a hurry, I think,” commented Tom.

  “Yes, and father’s flagship might be among the vessels smashed. No, thank you, I’m for ending the war some other way,” replied Mary.

  The orderly entered and stood at attention near the head of the table. Admiral Bayly looked up at him.

  “Yes, Tompkins, what is it?”

  “They’ve signalled from th’ h’entrance, sir, that th’ Leopard’s bringing h’in two boatloads of castaways, sir!”

  The admiral pushed back his chair, sprang up.

  “Survivors? The poor devils! We must take care of them right away. Bring me my hat!” And wholly forgetful of dinner he stalked out of the dining room.

  Miss Voysey rose, followed by Mary and Tom.

  “Uncle Lewis is always like that, leftenant,” she explained. “Shipwrecked seamen are our special concern. Won’t you come too?”

  Tom found his hat, the girls seized theirs, and in a moment the three of them, at Admiral Bayly’s heels, were hurrying down the slope towards the quay, their own half-eaten dinner abandoned.

  In spite of his youth, Tom Knowles found considerable difficulty in keeping up with the agile admiral, the latter intent on being on hand to welcome, himself, the victims of the U-boat warfare.

  The little party reached the quay as the destroyer Leopard was slowly warping alongside the pier, her heaving lines flying to seamen on the dock. Without pausing, they followed the admiral into the Custom House at the landing, hurried into the large main hall.

  With practiced hands, Admiral Bayly hurriedly filled a large coffee pot and started it going over a stove in the improvised galley in one corner of the hall, while his nieces and his guest busied themselves in setting out on the table a miscellaneous assortment of mess gear — heavy cups, some equally heavy saucers, a few spoons, what little sugar there was in the larder.

  “No cream, I suppose?” asked Tom, looking in vain for a pitcher.

  “No, and mighty little sugar, silly,” laughed Mary. “Haven’t you heard? There’s a war on.”

  The door opened.

  A huge negro stepped in, a torn white shirt, smeared with blood, clinging to his chest and standing sharply out against his coal-black shoulders. Behind him trooped a motley crew of woebegone sailors — wet, bloodshot eyes, blistered hands from toiling at the oars, striving to keep their boats from swamping. Hungry, cold, wounded many of them, by the blast which tore their ship apart, they crowded into the Custom House, wild relief showing in their salt-crusted faces on once again feeling beneath their feet the solid earth, after hours of desperate struggle in tossing boats.

  Admiral Bayly rushed forward with the coffee pot and was soon the centre of a jostling mob, pouring out hot coffee, mixed with brief words of sympathy for the wounded as he served them. Miss Voysey passed out cigarettes, and, to the few who seemed to have salvaged their pipes, a
jar of tobacco.

  Bluejackets drifted in from the canteen nearby and lent a hand; stragglers from the quay wandered in, some townspeople, some beachcombers, stranded from previous shipwrecked crews. The rattle of heavy cups filled the room, and mingled with the murmurs of sympathy from the bluejackets and townsmen as they listened to the survivors’ tales of horror and of hardship when their torpedoed ship sank and left them drifting for two days, a hundred miles offshore.

  Tom drew back out of the milling crowd and watched it break up in little knots, each excitedly gesticulating around some member of the unfortunate crew. The admiral and Miss Voysey were still serving; he looked anxiously around to see where Mary had disappeared.

  A touch on his shoulder. He whirled to find Mary standing behind, offering a cup of coffee.

  “I’m afraid, Tom, this will have to be the rest of your dinner.” As he took the steaming cup, she added, smiling ravishingly on him: “It’ll be hours before Uncle Lewis gets through here; when you’ve finished that, we might as well go out for a walk. Do you mind?”

  “Only if you go out with someone else,” answered Tom, gulping the black coffee.

  “Oh, by the way, Tom,” added Mary, “before we leave, I want you to meet the captain of a Norwegian ship who drifted ashore yesterday alone in an open boat. I’ve been entertaining him in the canteen all afternoon, and he’s had the most terrible adventures at sea. The Huns treated his ship abominably. He was the only one left when his ship sank right under his feet. Let’s see, he came in with some sailors a few minutes ago. Oh, there he is!”

  Mary strolled across the room to a knot of British and American bluejackets clustered round a seaman in the semi-nautical, semi-civilian garb of a merchant marine officer. She pushed through the group of sailors, took the officer in their midst in tow, and led him back with her to where Tom was finishing the last of his cup of very strong, and not very sweet, coffee.